


Command Materia: A User's Catalogue

by bookoftheazuresky



Series: Mastered Materia: A Collector's Catalogue [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Magic, Materia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-08-02 07:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16301114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookoftheazuresky/pseuds/bookoftheazuresky
Summary: Yellow materia for abilities.Mini fic for the main characters of FFVII, one for each materia.





	1. Throw: Yuffie

Yuffie tilted her head to the side, admiring the outline of shuriken she’d imbedded in the tree. She'd had a good arm and a good aim before she’d…borrowed…her teacher’s Throw materia when she left Wutai, but to make gil you had to spend gil! So she needed to use materia to get materia!

Yuffie nodded approvingly at her logic, hands set on her hips.

The only problem seemed to be the kinds of materia she could find! Basic low-level elemental materia were easy to get, since every shop seemed to have them. The same for Restore and Poison materia. But what she really wanted were rare and high level materia, the kinds that were passed down in families for generations. Summons as big and powerful as Leviathan would be best. And from her travels on the mainland so far, she knew that there were many legendary summons out there. She just had to find them!

Yuffie pulled another shuriken out of the pouch strapped to her thigh and _threw_. The yellow materia in her bangle glinted as her hand blurred faster than the eye could track, and the weapon thunked precisely into the center of the ring of similar stars. She flung up her hands and did a little dance.

She had it _in the bag_.


	2. Steal: Yuffie

Cloud hands the party’s Steal materia to her, saying dryly, “You’re probably the one who’ll get the most use out of this.” He’s right. Combined with her ninja training, she becomes a master at separating enemies from their items. She can feel deeper into the ability now, and she’s working up to attacking at the same time. All practice is good practice, and she intends to keep this baby for a _long_ time.

And if there’s more than a little irony in her using the very same materia to help her abscond with the entire stash of rare and valuable beauties that they had amassed, hey! They were the ones that dragged her along in the first place.


	3. Sense: Red XIII

Red XIII has keener senses than most of the party; humans, after all, are very separated from their roots as dwellers of Gaia these days. Combined with the innocent yellow materia slotted into the comb in his mane, and he becomes very nearly psychic. It only takes a slight flinch on the part of a Shinra soldier to know that he’s down to his last magazine, and the sheen on his brow and the stale, exhausted scent of his sweat says he’s got no MP to use anything else.   
The grunt wastes his last few shots trying to hit Cloud and never notices the leap that takes his life. Red XIII spent too much time in the lab to have mercy on those who thought to send him back.


	4. Enemy Skill: Red XIII

Red XIII had never intended to be caught for long. He’d led Shinra’s hunters on an up-hill-down-dale run through the edges of the Ancient Forest, losing several in natural hazards there, but eventually they had tagged him with a tranquilizer and taken him to the labs.

He’d found that Hojo, however, had quite a lot of experience with containing intelligent lab subjects. Still, his lab assistants were…not as careful as they should have been. Especially since Red XIII had refused to speak in captivity, and their overall impression of him was that of a beast, not a person. He’d stolen the yellow materia from one of them, only to discover that it was empty and useless.

Bugenhagen’s lessons had held, however. Just because a materia _appeared_ unhelpful didn’t mean it would be forever.


	5. Manipulate: Cait Sith

The theory of machines using materia is actually well developed. As an engineer, Reeve is quite familiar with the many uses of familiar magic in machinery, from Ice installed in computers to keep temperatures down to the way Lightning converted raw mako into electricity.

However, designing a puppet capable of using materia in the same manner as a person is…somewhat more difficult. If Reeve did nothing but move Cait Sith using Manipulate, as he had with previous versions, it was as simple as if he was using it himself. But Reeve simply didn’t have the time to micromanage Cait Sith- it would have to stand at least a little on its own.

Fortunately, there are only three kinds of materia that need direct control to use: green, red, and yellow. Both magic and summon materia need no more than to activate and aim. It’s command materia that’s most complicated.

Reeve knows he has it down when Cait Sith successfully uses Manipulate on its own. There might be some tweaking involved in the puppet’s programming to adapt to different commands, but Reeve can work that on the fly- it isn’t as if regular people master materia in a day.


	6. Deathblow: Vincent

A gifted marksman, they’d called him. Even when compared to his fellow Turks, Vincent had stood apart where sniping was concerned. Now, fresh out of his coffin, he is finding that his skills had not atrophied as much as they could have.

A brush of his finger over the materia imbedded in his weapon slots. Vincent breathed out, sighting along the barrel of his rifle. Deathblow snapped the world into sharpness, showing the weak spots in the reptile’s hide where blood ran close to the surface. Open them, and the beast would die with a single bullet.

At the bottom of his exhalation, he squeezed the trigger.


	7. Morph: Cait Sith

Reeve swears they give Cait Sith all the weird materia. It’s not that making items from monsters isn’t interesting, but it should really be done by someone with more muscle. Cloud or Cid would be much better suited to this materia than his puppet.

Still, Reeve thinks bemusedly as Cait Sith transmits video of the book that this particularly annoying monster had become, he’s sure this knowledge will come in handy someday.

It’s not like Cloud is making him do this out of spite, right?


	8. Double Cut: Cid

Monster sightings had become more common over the course of Cid’s lifetime. When he was a teenager, monsters had almost never come near towns. There had still been professional hunters, of course- monster materials were valuable, and roads had to be kept clear so people could travel. Cid had picked up the spear to fund his mechanical tinkering through hunting, alongside a few other teens looking for pocket money or excitement.

Now, however, monster hunting was far more necessary and widespread. It seemed like the Planet spawned more of them every year- cut down one and two would rise in its place.


	9. W-Summon: Yuffie

“WEAPON!” Cid roared, viciously twisting the controls of the submarine to try and evade. Yuffie felt her heartbeat in her throat, in her temples, as she stared into cyan and topaz eyes high on the beast’s pauldrons.

“There’s no way!” Cloud barked, hanging onto the back of Cid’s chair as the small craft bucked and yawed. A red core pulsated at the core of the immense shape. Light lanced out from the glowing spot, passing alarmingly close and blinding Yuffie for a terrifying moment.

Cid cursed, nursing all the speed he could from the submarine’s engines in a bid to reach the surface. The WEAPON matched their pace, seeming to loom above them as it inched closer.

Yuffie clutched at the metal fencing that partitioned the pilot’s compartment. Light flashed from the WEAPON’s core again- the submarine bucked like a feral chocobo. Knocked to her knees, her bangle reflected the dimming flash of the beast’s attack. The summon materia glowed like crystalized blood.

Of its own accord, her free hand dove into her bag, her precious materia collection. It took several frantic seconds to find the two she wanted- the _right_ two, she prayed. Carelessly, she popped out Steal and Fire, both useless so far beneath the surface of the water. They rolled back towards the door but Yuffie didn’t even spare them a glance.

“Leviathan,” Yuffie mouthed, feeling the blood in her veins turn to seawater, her breath to the rhythm of the tides. She was a child of Wutai and Leviathan was her first god, the ocean her domain.

“What the-“ she heard Cloud say from some far distance. Her bangled hand was locked on the cross-bar of the fencing, and it abruptly took her weight as water shook the submarine with the ferocity of a winter storm, no matter that they were hundreds of meters underwater.

Yuffie ignored it, held the might of the seas to her heart and reached further, higher. The air in her lungs thinned in the upper atmosphere, recalling the sight of the green and blue Gaia so far below as the Rocket Town rocket broke the bonds of gravity.

High, high above, she saw where Leviathan churned the seas and the shadow beneath the waves and opened her jaws…

Even her rictus-clamped fingers couldn’t hold her this time- she slammed into the back wall of the cockpit as whiteout overtook the viewscreen.

She roused to Cloud pouring an elixir over her head, the taste the evanescence of sunshine. The SOLDIER’s face was blacked with bruises, a gouge from some sharp, metallic corner oozing on one shoulder.

“Goddamn, kid, you are crazy,” Cloud informed her sincerely.


	10. Slash All: Cid

Keeping up with these kids was a challenge. Cid knew he was invaluable- he was the Highwind’s pilot, after all. They’d never get anywhere without him. But it cut against the grain to sit in the cockpit and let these crazy people go running off without him. Even when he’d been in charge at Rocket Town, he’d been elbow deep in grease in circuits, doing the necessary mechanic work in addition to his piloting training.

So he polished up his spear skills, working until he was in the best shape of his life. It was deeply satisfying to keep up a running tally of all the opponents he’d downed, to casually nudge Vincent in the ribs when he took out more enemies than the sniper and watch his mouth tighten with a bare touch of irritation. It was a mostly unspoken competition, but a fun one nonetheless.


	11. Mime: Cait Sith

Red XIII was gasping roughly, Tifa’s breast heaving with every breath as she shook sweat out of her eyes. They were both nearly run dry, little magic left. She had the strength for one more Cure.

Tifa fisted her hands again and threw everything she had left into the healing materia. The ache in her arms eased, the tremble in her calves softened.

A high, bright voice called out and a matching rush of warmth finally erased the stabbing stitch in her side. “There ye are!” Cait Sith caroled, brandishing his megaphone. “I’ve been lookin’ everywhere!”


	12. W-Magic: Vincent

Vincent twisted, evading the Zolom’s thrashing tail and squeezing off a shot that found the creature’s eye. It screamed in a shockingly human-like voice and cast Beta.

Swamp vegetation withered, standing water boiled. Vincent permitted himself a sharp breath and focused through the yellow prism of the second materia on his gun. Turk situational awareness let him balance the deep strength of Full Cure and the crackling cold of Ice 3.

Spikes of ice impaled the Zolom’s tail in place, ruby smearing the white monoliths. Tifa got her feet underneath her, blisters wiped off her skin, and smashed her fist into frost-brittle scales up to her elbow. She _twisted_ something deep in the Zolom’s body and it voiced another scream.

Vincent shot out its other eye and reached deep into Ice once again.


	13. W-Item: Tifa

Tifa blinked down at the two elixirs in her hands. She’d changed her mind picking it out and tried putting it back in the bag- but surely she only had the one?


End file.
